South Africa

This article details connections between Colonial India and The Cape/South Africa, with particular reference to emigration/immigration.

A large group of Anglo Indians migrated to Cape Colony in the 1820s..

The Cape was also a popular destination for people who were on furlough (leave) from their work in India, who had been obliged to leave India for health reasons, and did not wish to travel all the way back to England.

Records

FamilySearch records

• FamilySearch: South Africa Indexed Historical Records and Images, part of a collection of records for Africa. A free website. See IGI for more details about FamilySearch.

National Archives of South Africa

• National Archives & Records Service of South Africa contains a Search facility. Click on "Search National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System", on the left hand side of the webpage. the databases include “Data of the South African Genealogical Society on Gravestones”.

Monument inscriptions

• Monumental inscriptions at the Cape of Good Hope 1799-1861. Transcriptions, in 1907, of graves in two Cape Town cemeteries extracted from General History and Social Life of the Cape of Good Hope by C. Graham Botha 1962. Include many with India connections.
• Stuart Green transcribed, in April 2003, the following entries from the SA Genealogical Society database at the National Archives of South Africa for the Rootsweb India Mailing list:

• Gravestones in South Africa - Bombay Connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - Madras connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - Bengal connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - India connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - Calcutta connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - Burma connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - Ceylon connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - Karachi connections
• Gravestones in South Africa - HEIC connections

e-Family

• e-Family A free site for those researching their roots in South Africa, with a Search facility for transcribed records. Includes First Fifty Years - a project collating Cape of Good Hope records, a project to transcribe and publish copies of records relating to individuals who lived at the Cape (Cabo da Boa Esperança / de Caep de Goede Hoop / Die Kaap die Goeie Hoop) during the first decades of the settlement after 1652.

Ancestry

Ancestry is a pay website

• Ancestry Card Catalogue of all Record Databases (located as an option under the Search tab). Use Search terms such as Africa, and South Africa.
• "England, Andrews Newspaper Index Cards, 1790-1976", This is part of Newspapers and Periodicals section of the Ancestry database and holds some genealogical information relating to colonial countries including Africa.

Jager (Jaeger) Corps

Also known as the British German Legion or the German Legion

In 1860 the 109th Regiment of Foot in India was joined by over 500 men of the Jaeger Corps who had volunteered from the Cape Colony (part of South Africa under British Occupation until 1910) for service in India on the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny The Jager (Jaeger) Corps had its origin in the German Legion sent to the Crimea, which was then resettled in South Africa

For further details , see Jager Corps.

Also see

• Boer War
• East Africa
• Passenger lists
• Subscription websites-online newspapers, journals and directories : African publications.

Information about the database African Newspapers, Series 1 and 2, 1800-1925; and African Newspapers: The British Library Collection, both part of Readex World Newspapers Archive, both of which are available at the British Library.

External Links

Boer War

• Website containing some information re Indian and Ceylon Units in the Boer War AngloBoerWar.com
• Lumsden's Horse was a Volunteer Regiment from India which fought in the Boer War. The full history of the regiment is given in The History of Lumsden's Horse; a complete record of the corps from its formation to its disbandment by Henry H. S Pearse 1903 Archive.org

On return of the regiment to India, page 409 of the History states "They left nearly sixty of their number in South Africa, some as administrators, some in the Regular Army, some in the Police" and page 418 of the History gives a List of Lumsden’s Horse who joined the Johannesburg Police in December 1900.

• See POW Camps in India-Boer War for details of the Boer prisoners of war who were taken to camps in India, Ceylon and elsewhere. Some of the prisoners in India died there.

General information

• Sharon Warr’s South African Genealogy
• Conrod Mercer’s South African Genealogy Page
• National Archives of South Africa: Research Retrieved 6 October 2014
  • All birth, marriage and death certificates as well as immigration, naturalization and name change records are kept at the Department of Home Affairs Retrieved 6 October 2014
• Information about Documentation Centre (Department of Defence Force Archives) which holds military records, including personnel records. archivalplatform.org

Update: July 2018. Email address has changed to archive@dod.mil.za and other contact details have also changed.

• Civil Registration in South Africa sagenealogy.co.za Retrieved 6 October 2014
• 1820 Settlers to South Africa' The website includes transcriptions of Baptisms, Marriages and Cape Civil Death indices from records held on FamilySearch and links to a website “Records and Resources”
• The South African Military History Society: Die Suid-Afrikaanse Krygshistoriese Vereniging. Includes links to online Journals and other links such as "South African Bookdealers who specialise in Military Subjects".

Mailing Lists

• Rootsweb South Africa Mailing Lists includes
  • South-Africa-Immigrants-British Mailing List

A mailing list for the discussion and sharing of information regarding the immigrants from the United Kingdom to South Africa prior to 1900. Currently, (2019, April), this List is stated to be inactive, but contains Archives to 2019, January.

• Rootsweb Africa Mailing Lists also include some South Africa Mailing Lists

Historical books online

• "Extracts from registers of deaths at the Cape of Good Hope 1795-1815" by C Graham Botha. Page 170 The Genealogist 29, 1913. Archive.org

"Extracts from the register of deaths at the Cape of Good Hope 1816-1826" by C Graham Botha. Page 47 The Genealogist 32, 1915. Archive.org

"Extracts of marriages at the Cape of Good Hope 1806-1821"; and "Extracts of Baptism at the Cape of Good Hope 1810-1821" by C Graham Bortha. The Genealogist 30, 1914. (digital page 632/744).These are separately numbered sections towards the back of the book. Archive.org

Alternative version: Marriages and Baptisms from The Genealogist Volume 30, Supplement 11, 1913-1916 by Colin Graham Botha. Archive.org.

The writings of C Graham Botha were re-published in 1962 as The Collected Works of C. Graham Botha, in three volumes, being Volume 1 General History and Social Life of the Cape of Good Hope; Volume 2 History of law, medicine, and place names in the Cape of Good Hope and Volume 3 Cape Archives and Records. It appears that at least volumes 1 and 3 include genealogical transcriptions. Available at the British Library UIN: BLL01000426508

• Geslacht-Register der Oude Kaapsche Familien by Christoffel Coetzee De Villiers c 1894 Archive.org (in Dutch/Africaans). Gives details/trees for families who settled in the Cape area of South Africa.

Part 1 A-J, with index. Part 2 A-O, with index, Part 3 P-Z, unfortunately index missing, with some additional entries at the end

This page mentions the East India Company.

• History of the Cape Mounted Riflemen [1796-1841]; with a brief account of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1842. Google Books. Part of the official series Historical Records of the British Army.
• Hilda's "Where is it?" of recipes : containing, amongst other practical and tried recipes, many old Cape, Indian, and Malay dishes and preserves: also directions for polishing furniture, cleaning silk, etc. and a collection of home remedies in case of sickness by Hildagonda J Duckitt 1908 edition Archive.org. First published 1891